When I started work at Microsoft I was lucky in that 8 other people started on the very same day which gave me a ready-made group of friends for the new boy from up-north. I think that it says something about Microsoft and the people that are employed here that they basically put 9 strangers in a room and we all got on instantly despite our completely different backgrounds and our different initial career paths in the areas of Sales, Technical and Marketing. 18 months on and we are still a close group of friends (and colleagues) but this also means that we occasionally have some lively discussions on our private email alias on various subjects due to our different personal and business perspectives. The most recent is on a subject that is close to my heart and I thought that I should share the views of the only person that counts in this case, namely me (it is my blog so them’s the rules ). The subject of debate was Groove.

When we acquired Groove Networks last year I spent a bit of time researching Groove and made an attempt at getting to grips with this new addition to the IW portfolio. I downloaded the Groove 3.1 client and I did what I guess is the software equivalent of flicking though the pages of the Groove book, I looked at the various tools, the chat feature and the IM client but that was it. I just looked at it. One of my colleagues took a slightly different approach. She listened to my Groove pitch when I thought that Groove could solve some collaboration issues that she was experiencing. She downloaded the client (along with the group of people, both internal and external, that she needed to collaborate with) and started ‘Groove-ing’. And that’s really the point. Groove is a collaboration tool. You have to use it with people. That was really the divide within our alias, those that Grooved and loved it and those who didn’t use it and therefore couldn’t see the point/value of Groove within the Office system.

It would normally be at this point where I would provide several links to information about Groove but I’m not going to do that on this occasion. Please do go and have a look at the product info and FAQ on the Office system preview site but what I would like you to do is this. Go and install the Beta 2 of Groove 2007 or the 60-day trail of Version 3.1 and then send me an email with the subject line ‘I want to get my Groove on’ and I’ll send you an invite to a demonstration workspace where I will periodically add some content and do other Groove-y stuff and you (along with all the other workspace members) can discuss and see firsthand how and why Groove just works. Plain and simple.